Now shipping - SoftRAID version 5!!

After 2 years in development and 9 months in heavy testing, we are excited to ship SoftRAID version 5. This new release of SoftRAID adds RAID 4, RAID 5 and RAID 1+0 volumes.

Version 5 has a upgraded user interface and a new menu bar indicator to tell you at a glance whether your SoftRAID volumes are fully protected.

Want to try it out? Just download SoftRAID and try it for 30 days. The trial version is fully functional.

SoftRAID is the best RAID solution for Mac OS X. Don't just take our word for it, read what reviewers Lloyd Chambers and Larry Jordan have said about SoftRAID version 5.

SoftRAID version 5 is fully compatible with Yosemite (Mac OS X 10.10)

Version 5 has been extensively tested with Yosemite for compatibility. You can even use the Yosemite installer to install Mac OS X onto a SoftRAID volume. See our Compatibility Notes for more information.

If you are using SoftRAID version 4, make sure you upgrade to version 5 before installing Yosemite on your Mac. Version 4 will not work with Yosemite

SoftRAID version 5 now bundled with OWC ThunderBay IV

OWC is now bundling SoftRAID version 5 with their ThunderBay 4 and ThunderBay mini enclosures. It makes a perfect pair, a reliable Thunderbolt 2 enclosure combined with state of the art RAID software.

OWC sells the ThunderBay 4 and ThunderBay mini, complete with 4 fast disks or SSDs, together with SoftRAID version 5 directly from their web site.

How fast do you want to go?

With SoftRAID, you can create volumes with several different RAID levels. Any SoftRAID volume can use up to 16 disks. The disks can even be in different enclosures to give you more flexibility and higher performance. You can't get this level of flexibility and performance from hardware RAID.

Fast:

4 Disk

8 Disks

Read: 350 MB/sec

Read: 698 MB/sec

Write: 348 MB/sec

Write: 695 MB/sec

4 SSDs

8 SSDs

Read: 1,393 MB/sec

Read: 2,429 MB/sec

Write: 680 MB/sec

Write: 1,277 MB/sec

SoftRAID RAID 1+0 Volumes

SoftRAID RAID 1+0 volumes have a great combination of speed, simplicity and reliability. A SoftRAID RAID 1+0 volume with 8 disks can be as fast as a stripe (RAID 0) volume with 4 disks. RAID 1+0 volumes are a great solution for critical data, servers and any professional application.

Faster:

4 Disk

8 Disks

Read: 534 MB/sec

Read: 1,220 MB/sec

Write: 526 MB/sec

Write: 1,158 MB/sec

4 SSDs

8 SSDs

Read: 1,038 MB/sec

Read: 2,129 MB/sec

Write: 947 MB/sec

Write: 1,564 MB/sec

SoftRAID RAID 5 Volumes

SoftRAID RAID 5 volumes are faster than RAID 1+0 volumes. They are almost as fast as stripe (RAID 0) volumes and have the advantage of protecting you from disk failure. When one of the disks fails in a RAID 5 volume, you can still keep reading and writing files on that volume, without interruption. SoftRAID RAID 5 volumes are ideal for reading and writing large files. They are also good for small files which are frequently read but infrequently written.

Fastest:

4 Disk

8 Disks

Read: 696 MB/sec

Read: 1,397 MB/sec

Write: 688 MB/sec

Write: 1,379 MB/sec

4 SSDs

8 SSDs

Read: 1,572 MB/sec

Read: 2,322 MB/sec

Write: 1,355 MB/sec

Write: 2,561 MB/sec

SoftRAID Stripe (RAID 0) Volumes

Stripe (RAID 0) volumes give you the fastest possible read and write performance but have no protection from disk failure. If a disk fails in a stripe volume, you will lose all the files on that volume.

Need more performance? Just add more disks

Unlike hardware RAID, SoftRAID volumes can combine disks in different enclosures. You can even attach the disks to different connectors on your Mac.

For instance, to create a volume which goes faster than a single Thunderbolt cable, you can put half the disks in an Thunderbolt enclosure and the other half in a second enclosure connected to a different Thunderbolt port. That's just not possible with hardware RAID.

How we measured performance
The read and write performance displayed above was measured using AJA System Test running on a 2013 MacPro with a 3.5 GHz six core processor and 16 GB of RAM. For HDD tests, the Mac was connected to 1 (for "4 Disks") or 2 (for "8 Disks") OWC ThunderBay 4 enclosures containing Toshiba 3 TB hard disks. For SSD tests, the Mac was connected to 1 (for "4 SSDs") or 2 (for "8 SSDs") OWC ThunderBay mini enclosures containing 960 GB OWC Mercury Extreme Pro solid state disks. All RAID 0 and RAID 1+0 volumes were tested with a stripe unit size of 64 KB. The actual performance you measure might be different due to changes in hardware, software, firmware or changes to your configuration.

How safe do you want to be?

SoftRAID offers different levels of protection. A SoftRAID volume can protect you from disk failure, hardware failure and be part of a backup strategy to protect your business from theft, fire, flooding and other calamities.

Safe:

Protection From:

Disk Failure

SoftRAID RAID 5 Volumes

SoftRAID RAID 5 volumes protect you from disk failure. If a disk in a SoftRAID RAID 5 volume fails, you can keep using the volume normally.

Safer:

Protection From:

Disk Failure

Power Supply Failure

Enclosure Failure

SoftRAID RAID 1+0 Volumes

SoftRAID RAID 1+0 volumes offer greater protection than RAID 5 volumes. A SoftRAID RAID 1+0 volume with disks in two enclosures protects you from disk failure and power supply, enclosure or cable failures.

Safest:

Protection From:

Disk Failure

Power Supply Failure

Enclosure Failure

Theft or Fire

SoftRAID Mirror (RAID 1) Volumes

SoftRAID Mirror (RAID 1) volumes provide the greatest level of protection. A 3 disk mirror will continue to work even if 2 of the disks fail. If the disks are in different enclosures, your volume is also protected from power supply, enclosure or cable failures.

Backing Up Off-Site with Mirror Volumes

Mirror disks can also be part of an off-site backup strategy. One or more of the mirror disks can be stored off site and brought in every week, on rotation. When the off-site disk is connected to the mirror volume, it will rebuild quickly using SoftRAID's Fast Mirror Rebuild technology. At the end of the rebuild, the disk can then be stored off site again. How else can you easily maintain an off-site backup of a multi-terabyte volume.

How much will you lose when your hard disk fails?

Have you ever had a hard disk fail? How much work did you lose? How long did it take you to get your Mac working normally again? Did you lose work you hadn't backed up yet? How many thousands of dollars did you spend at a data recovery service?

If you haven't lost anything from a failed disk yet, you probably know someone who has. They had to recreate part of a project, lost all the pictures from their vacations or lost work on video which they were editing. It was probably one of those disasters they'll remember for years to come.

Some hard disks are more reliable than others

No make and model of hard disk is perfect. They all fail at some rate. The good ones fail at a rate of about 3% a year, the bad ones fail at 25% a year or more. Even SSDs (Solid State Disks) fail at about the same rate.

We just finished over 500 hours of testing on the next version of SoftRAID using three popular brands of disks. Most of the disks we used work fine, but one particular brand and model had a 33% failure rate. When you buy a disk, how can you know if you're getting the one that fails at a 3% rate, a 25% rate, or even higher?

Are you feeling lucky?

If you do the math, you realize that even if you only use one disk on your Mac at a time, and it's one of the good ones which fails at a rate of 3% a year, you still have a 25% chance of experiencing a hard disk failure in the next 10 years. Shouldn't you have a little insurance against a disaster which has a 1 in 4 chance of occurring in the next 10 years? At SoftRAID, we have the answer.

SoftRAID can protect your Mac 3 ways

Most RAID products just protect you from losing files when a disk fails. SoftRAID does more. It can test a disk to make sure your disks are reliable before you use them. It can also detect when a disk is starting to become less reliable.

1) SoftRAID can keep you from using a disk which is about to fail

SoftRAID includes a powerful Certify Disk feature. When you Certify a disk, you write, then read, every sector of the disk - more than once. This is the type of testing which should be done on each disk at the factory - but it isn't.

Disks are now so big that manufacturers can't afford the huge amount of time it takes to test every sector on every disk. With SoftRAID, you can perform the test which should have been done at the factory.

2) SoftRAID can warn you when a disk is becoming less reliable

When you use SoftRAID, the SoftRAID Monitor keep track of which disks are experiencing errors and logs when those errors occur. This makes it easy to determine which disk is causing you problems.

SoftRAID also looks for wear patterns which indicate that a disk is becoming unreliable. When it sees a disk is becoming less reliable, it warns you.

In our labs, over 50% of the disks that fail are marked as unreliable by the SoftRAID Monitor at least 10 days before they fail completely. Wouldn't you love advanced warning of a disk failure, so you can plan for a replacement?

3) SoftRAID can keep you working normally after your disk fails

If one disk fails, the other ones still have all the data for your volume.

The current shipping version of AppleRAID is 5 years old

Did you know that it's been more than 5 years since Apple engineers worked on the AppleRAID driver, the one built into the Disk Utility program on your Mac? They last time they fixed bugs in it was 2009. That was the year that the iPhone 3G first shipped, the year when Apple first released Snow Leopard and a year before the first iPad shipped.

Many people will tell you to use AppleRAID, but do you really want to be using software that's unsupported and hasn't been changed to take advantage of advances in new hardware? We think you deserve to be using something much better, SoftRAID.

SoftRAID is continually improved

We don't just ship the same old software year after year. We are constantly improving SoftRAID, adding new features, adding support for new hardware and ensuring compatibility with each new version of Mac OS X. Take a look at our features page and see how much more reliable your Mac could be.

SoftRAID is actively supported

At SoftRAID, we're avid bug-hunters. We spend hundreds of hours testing and re-testing our time-proven product. If you find a bug in SoftRAID. We'll fix it. It's that simple

Is there a feature that you want to see in SoftRAID? Just email us at: info@softraid.com. We'd love to hear from you. Many of the great features in our current version of SoftRAID started out as requests from our customers

Outstanding RAID software for Mac OS since 1996

We have been creating RAID software for Mac OS since 1996. We started on Mac OS 7. In fact, our team wrote the original version of AppleRAID.

We shipped the first version of SoftRAID for Mac OS X over 10 years ago and have been actively developing SoftRAID and supporting Mac OS X ever since. Our current version includes many features you won’t find on any other RAID product.